Huntsman keeps his options open

President Barack Obama essentially sidelined a potential 2012 challenger last year when he dispatched Republican Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman to Beijing.

But Obama also might have unwittingly done his ambassador to China a favor — giving Huntsman a place to wait out the GOP soul-searching that has upended once-promising careers of moderates like him.

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Huntsman still has his eyes on the political landscape back home and isn’t shy about his possible interest in running for office. “That’s an option we will always hold open,” he said in a telephone interview from Beijing, where he said he expects the coming months to be a critical part of his time in China.

Huntsman, 50, is charged with seeing through aspects of Obama’s foreign policy that will have significant political consequences and are being closely watched at home. Most pressing is Iran, where he believes China will agree to tougher sanctions. But in his eight months on the job, Huntsman also has become a goodwill ambassador of sorts, frequenting parts of China that are well out of most American officials’ comfort zone and winning over locals with his fluent Mandarin Chinese, young family and folksy charm.

When the conversation turns to Republican politics in the U.S., Huntsman chooses his words carefully — but he suggests that the party’s ideological bloodletting will be long settled by the time he returns, and in plenty of time before the 2016 presidential campaign.

From Huntsman’s view 7,000 miles away, the Republican Party infighting looks like a good thing. He’s still advocating for “a big tent party” and predicts a new, winnable GOP platform will eventually emerge from the war between moderates and the tea party movement.

“What is most important for the Republican Party these days is to let all voices be heard,” he said. “I think it’s a very healthy transition period, knowing full well that this isn’t the end point but this is one step in getting the Republican Party to an endpoint.”

Asked if he believes the Republican Party has been taken over by those on the far right, such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, Huntsman simply said: “Elections are a very healthy thing.”

“Elections will ultimately, in 2010 and 2012, be the telltale sign of whether or not the overall message is working,” he added.

Left unsaid is that there couldn’t be better cycles for a moderate Republican with political ambitions to sit out — all you have to do is look to Republican-turned-independent Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

Huntsman's tone is a stark contrast from a year ago when he was a red-state governor unabashedly challenging his own party to move to the middle on issues like climate change, gay rights and immigration.